Last year, Team Denmark was the quarter final casualty in Canada’s inexorable march to the gold medal, but they were there, and the fact that they were was something of a triumph on its own. Though the 8-0 loss was a bitter and thorough defeat, it did not eclipse the things they had accomplished. Two points from two overtime losses, and a historic win, closing out the tournament without even a whisper of the threat of relegation. As twenty-three players from a tiny country over 6,000 kilometers away saluted crowd in Toronto, the roar of the fans proved just how thoroughly Denmark’s Cinderella story had won the hearts of a nation. This year they are hoping to add another page to the history books — without Oliver Bjørkstrand, and without Nikolaj Ehlers as well.

Roster

Player

Pos

League

Current Team

Thomas Lillie

G

SHL

Växjö Lakers

Lasse Munk Petersen

G

WHL

Spokane Chiefs

Mathias Seldrup

G

Metal Ligaen

Herning Blue Fox

Ludvig Adamsen

D

BCHL

Surrey Eagles

Morten Jensen

D

Allsvenskan

Rögle Ängelholm

Lasse Knudsen

D

Metal Ligaen

Aalborg Pirates

Anders Krogsgaard

D

Metal Ligaen

Esbjerg Energy

Matias Lassen

D

Allsvenskan

Leksands Stars

Christian Mieritz

D

OHL

Hamilton Bulldogs

Nicolai Weichel

D

Metal Ligaen

Rungsted Ishockey

Niklas Andersen

F

WHL

Spokane Chiefs

William Boysen

F

Metal Ligaen

Rungsted Ishockey

Emil Christensen

F

Metal Ligaen

Rødovre Mighty Bulls

Mathias From

F

Allsvenskan

Rögle Ängelholm

Jeppe Holmberg

F

Metal Ligaen

Esbjerg Energy

Marcus Jensen

F

Metal Ligaen

Herning Blue Fox

Kristian Jensen

F

SHL

Luleå HF

Jeppe Jul Korsgaard

F

Metal Ligaen

Aalborg Pirates

Nikolaj Krag

F

Metal Ligaen

Rødovre Mighty Bulls

Søren Nielsen

F

Metal Ligaen

Esbjerg Energy

Thomas Olsen

F

SHL

Malmö Redhawks

Jonas Røndbjerg

F

Metal Ligaen

Rungsted Ishockey

Alexander True

F

WHL

Seattle Thunderbirds

In the hockey world, as in many other sports, it is not uncommon to hear a close-knit team likened to a family. For team Denmark, the statement is more literal. Hailing from a country with only 24 arenas, teammates are often quite literally family.* Names in boldface signify players returning to the team

True and Ehlers are cousins, many players have older brothers who played with them in last year’s World Cup, or even last year’s world juniors. Head coach Olaf Eller is, as many will remember from last year, the father of Montreal Canadiens‘ forward Lars Eller, and of Mads Eller, now playing for the ECHL Adirondack Thunder. Assistant coach Dan Jensen is the father of Vancouver Canucks‘ Nicklas Jensen, and of Markus who is making his return to the team.

On the blue line, there is both experience and familiarity at this level of competition, as Matias Lassen, Jeppe Holmberg and Anders Krogsgaard all played on the team last year, and Mieritz will be hoping to build on his performance as medal winning captain.

Alexander True will likely find himself looked to as one of the team’s offensive leaders, together with players like Søren Nielsen, and the U18 top scorers Jeppe Jul Korsgaard (3 goals, 3 assists in 5 games) and Mathias From (4 goals, 2 assists). True has 18 points in 27 games this year for the Seattle Thunderbirds in the WHL, while From has 14 in 24 for Rögel’s U20 team in the development league, and Korsgaard has six points in four games for Aalborg’s development team and 7 in 25 for the big club. They will also be looking for contributions from players like Andersen, Holmberg, Krag-Christensen, Thomas Olsen and Kristian Jensen.

The team’s biggest strength is in their goaltending. Like Sørenson before him, likely number one goalie Thomas Lillie is going to have to stand on his head. Fortunately, the numbers indicate that he can. Playing for one of the bottom teams of the SHL’s development league, Lillie’s .916 SVS% is good for ninth overall. He’s had good showings in every level of international play, earning accolades for his performances. Lasse Petersen too is an accomplished goalie at the international level, having backstopped the U18 team to the gold medal last year with a sterling .937 SVS% and 1.60 goals against average. Denmark is going to need them both to have the tournaments of their lives if they are to escape relegation.

Not counting Ehlers, eight of Denmark’s players from the 2015 team are back, and nine of the other players who won gold with Mieritz and Petersen are hoping to earn spots.

Weaknesses

While the overall quality of the team may have improved slightly, the fact that they lack a game-breaker like an Ehlers or a Bjørkstrand will likely hurt the team’s chances. Denmark’s best hope to avoid relegation may be to fight their way into overtime as many times as possible, or (more probably) to beat their likely opponent Belarus in the best of three relegation series.

X-factor

Denmark is lacking in a single player who jumps out in the same way that Ehlers did last year. Instead the x-factors will likely be, as previously mentioned, an improved overall team game, the goaltending and the powerplay. Last year, the Danes scored eight of their ten goals on the man advantage.

While building on last year’s win and two overtime losses with a stronger showing may an impossibly tall order against a series of formidable opponents that include Canada, Sweden, and the USA, that certainly isn’t going to stop the Danes from trying.

To say that the odds are stacked against them would be putting it lightly, but whatever the outcome, they may well say, in the words of Shakespeare’s Henry V: we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

This is a more detailed version of my preview for EOTP, which can be found here. Also, a huge thanks to Patrik, aka @Zeb_Habs who was immensely helpful with explaining the European leagues.

I finally updated my Hockey Writing page. You can now find all the things I’ve written to this point there.

I also have a new job, so I’m going to be switching my posting schedule up a little bit. I haven’t decided if I will be posting Saturday or Sunday yet, but it’s definitely going to be the weekend as my EOTP duties occupy most of my writing time during weeknights.

This means that I’ll probably be re-scheduling (and resuming) may Weekly Warbles as well. Though I also haven’t completely figured that out either.

N.B. Large portions of this post are lifted directly from my journal. I meant to post this a long time ago, but never quite got around to typing it up.

Penny of the thousand stories used to tell me how she loved working at rinks – or simply being at rinks. She waxed poetic about the smell of the ice and the sound of skates. I didn’t disbelieve her, but it seemed a little crazy. I mean, I couldn’t very well disbelieve her when I can honestly say I love the way a stable full of horses smells. I just didn’t really get it.

I have since spent quite a few summer Sunday evenings sitting in a rink, soaking in the cold and the smell of the ice at Steph’s ringette practices, listening to the sounds of blades, and sticks and, in this case, rings on the ice, and I understood a bit better.

Then this September, through a pretty incredible series of events, I had the chance to go see a preseason game with
Steph at the Bell Centre. Habs vs Hawks, sitting way up in the rafters. It was amazing.

Well, the game part of it kind of sucked, because the Habs played pretty terribly, but the rest of the experience, that part was amazing. As I said, we were way up in the sky, almost level with the press gallery, but while we were really far away from the ice, it gave us a great view of the plays as they unfolded (or didn’t unfold…as the case might be…).

Also, no amount of hearing how great the Bell Centre is quite prepares one for the sounds of “Fix You” booming over the dark arena, or for when the horn goes off and the crowd erupts. Thanks Zach Kassian. If he did nothing else, he at least ensured that I got to witness a Habs goal at my first game.

It was also pretty special to hear the crowd (thin as it was) come alive for Francis Bouillon when he came out to be acknowledged at the start of the game.

Unfortunately for me, there was no Eller, and no Pacioretty, no Subban, or Christian Thomas, but it was still great. There’ll be other opportunities to see them.

The crowd came alive again when Gabriel Dumont dropped the gloves in defence of his teammate, Ryan Johnston, and again when Jeremy Gregoire dropped the gloves after a terrible hit on Dumont. It was pretty scary.

Other than that, it was a great way to finally understand why people were so grumpy about the way the Habs were playing at the time.

It’s one thing to hear how the Habs had been a perimeter team and know that they had trouble exiting the defensive zone, and another to actually see Tomas Plekanec, Brendan Gallagher and Jeff Petry struggle to get past what was essentially the Blackhawk’s AHL team. It was also pretty amazing to get to see Carey Price play, and all the others, even if they were mostly tiny numbers on the ice.

But even at that distance, Plekanec’s stride and Gallagher’s goalie adventures were easily identifiable, as were Emelin’s…defensive…um…adventures of a totally different kind. He’d been looking pretty good all game, not great, but certainly not bad, and then…well…adventures. Frustrating when he essentially was (and is) keeping Jarred Tinordi or Mark Barberio out of a spot.

Nathan Beaulieu looked fantastic, singlehandedly bailing out several veterans, and Brett Lernout looked surprisingly solid for a baby defenceman (it’s also so strange that Beaulieu’s the one taking rookies under his wing when last year, that was basically him).

Regardless of the results, it was hockey at the Bell Centre, and I got to seeit.

About Me

I'm a hockey obsessed New Yorker and Montreal Canadiens fan, currently living in Salt Lake City. I have a B.A. and M.A. in Medieval Studies, but have decided academia is not for me. I write for Habs Eyes on the Prize, and am the publicist for the Utah Grizzlies' booster club.